Sunday, 18 December 2016

EMANCIPATION IN THE BACKYARD

No matter
what the world speaks about women’s emancipation and the revolutionary women
who dare to step out of their skirts and begin wearing pants, there is always
some place or some upper hand holding them down with the age old adage which
repeats ‘boys will be boys’ and allows them to excuse bad behaviour of the
other gender.

It is as if
the whole world of women is a pot of mud on the potter’s wheel and of course
the potter is a man giving desired shape to the pot. At the end of his creation
he has in all probability given rise to a patriarchal mold.

In this
battle of gender equality, many women have successfully won equal rights in
their peripheral worlds, but many I’m sure have sacrificed their hearts and
minds due to societal pressures. However, the women who courageously lift
themselves up from quicksand like situational and circumstantial spots are
those who express their inner voice in an outward action. They may outwardly
appear to stagger under the load of emotional burdens but in the end prove
themselves strong. Their individual small stories display the big struggle of
womanhood in personal or public arenas. Their persistence to stand up above the
common acceptance of many in similar situations is what in the end makes them
stand tall even if they are seen standing alone.

A very popular
personality from India recently moved on and no doubt that the nation will
always remember and grieve the loss of Jayalalitha the chief minister of Tamil
Nadu who lived her life on her terms. Her death brings to my mind a condition
of vacuum in the lives of a great number of women, caused largely due to
restrictions and mannerisms posed on them by their families and society.
Jayalalitha was a bold lady; strong enough to accept being a failure in her
personal love life and yet holding on to the spark to create an identity for
herself. Probably women need a fire in them to create a strong platform for
themselves. After facing rejection from being accepted in a legal relationship,
she boldly refused to accept the Indian tradition where a girl was born a
daughter, to become a wife and die a mother. Though she failed to achieve the
wife status, she prophesied that she would die as a mother and rightly, many in
India have lost their Amma today.

But India
and the world have an inexhaustible number of strong women. Yes of course when
we lose them we have wet eyes but life moves on with their memories.

A few days
back I had the privilege of watching ‘45 Years’, a British Romantic Drama Film,
directed by Andrew Haigh. It was actually the least frightening ghost story
that I had ever watched till then. When I say ‘ghost story’ I do not mean the
one which makes you grip the seat handles and sit upright; tensed enough and
alert not to jump up to some sudden loud surprisingly scary music. Instead, the
story starring Charlotte Rampling as Kate and Tom Courtenay as George is a very
extraordinary story of a very ordinary elderly couple. I felt it to be rather
an intensely complicated piece of work which made me begin to wonder about any
insignificant matters of significance from the past which could be secretly
holding on to a destructive power and capable of destroying the present.

The drama
has a rude awakening for Kate from her slumberous existence where she daily
walks her dog, visits the market and cooks the usual meals which make life
appear to be moving on smoothly. Of course, on the surface level everything
appears to be full of domesticated contentment but only till the arrival of
some uncomfortable information from Switzerland. A letter we learn, brings into
the life of the placid couple who are about to celebrate their 45 years
together, the most significant character of the story. But ironically Katya is
dead 45 years before she surfaces in this quite home. Katya stands out in her
pictures as a bold young woman who had dared to live with a man without being
married to him and worse still, she was pregnant. Mind well, we learn from the
story that George meets Kate only after Katya’s accident in the Swiss Alps. The
arrival of the letter informs him of the recovery of her body after four and a
half decades, opening up an interior world of his unknown life to his wife
Kate. The ground splits apart for Kate! The body of his live-in partner has
been found in the Ice Mountains, preserved by nature.

Suddenly,
George feels it his moral responsibility to go and see her but finally gives up
realizing that even walking just a few steps causes him breathlessness. And so
the film moves on show casing an intense emotional crisis for its female
protagonist. Questions surface in her mind and she asks her husband if he would
have ever got married to her if Katya hadn’t moved on.

He is honest
in his answer and breaks her heart. I think that her pulling back her desire

to
buy him a watch for their 45th wedding anniversary, is because she is
wondering about the time she has spent with this man and how much of it has really
been worth it.

However, in
spite of the hurt, she wishes to forget the past and desires to begin all over even
though it is so late in life; and it is here that we see a very gracefully
enacted bedroom sequence where her hurt surfaces when he prefers to keep his
eyes shut. Probably she is wondering whether their unison in the past has been between him and her alone or has Katya always been present between them?

The drama then
beautifully moves on till the couple, immaculately dressed, walks into the
anniversary party where the husband speaks in the memory of the years gone by.
Actually nothing really happens and yet everything appears to have changed.
Kate can be seen standing alone with a burden on her heart and mind. There, in
the midst of the noise of celebration of togetherness she cries with a feeling
of being stranded. She doesn’t have a living rival and yet the dead has proved
strong enough to destroy her present.

However, the
prize of watching the film is when Kate moves away from the gathering and
stands in silence; a picture of strength. She is old but not without the power
of self-respect. Let us not assume
here that Kate is a grumpy old woman; she is in fact a quiet and uncomplaining
wife and an understanding lady who has tried to learn about her husband’s past
and has really desired to help him wean out of it. She has asked him questions,
though has sadly been unprepared to hear the answers. She certainly couldn’t ever
have not wanted the dead past to destroy her present and therefore has continued
with the arrangements for their 45th anniversary. Those visits to
the watch shop in the market are probably the director’s way of telling us
something about time which has stopped from moving ahead and has instead gone
far too back in her life to dig a grave. The question is, would this elderly
protagonist of the movie, continue to live a lie or would she give air to the
fire of survival in herself and move out? Does she have the courage to fight the
situation that life has suddenly placed before her? As a woman who has lived
with her man for ‘45 years’ she would never have believed that there could have
ever been something about her husband unknown to her. Living together for four
and a half decades, one would assume, would be enough to know one another
inside out. The movie successfully jolts the viewer out of a very quiet and
peaceful life of a very mature couple which goes berserk at the interference of
a reality long dead and over.

In my novel,
‘Jars Filled with Gold’, I attempted to showcase the same unrecognized strength
of women. My three female protagonists fought their circumstances in their own
strength and stood out strong.

Traditional
values may go against Kate in her decision. Many men and women would probably call
her crazy for the decision she ends up making. Many would say that such a decision was
probably an outlet of insecurity but few would like my heroine Maitreyi, and Kate
from ’45 Years’ think that a decision was needed.

There are
movies which promote gender justice and there are movies that promote humanism;
but ‘45 Years’ promotes self-respect and I think that for that one reason it is
a worth watch.

Filmmakers
often rightly attempt to connect reason and reality in their films and I think ‘45
Years’ has reason enough to emancipate a senior female citizen in spite of the
reality of her age. Resisting all fears of age and community beliefs, Kate
stands up in the end for her right to self-respect.

Probably
every woman, be it Kate or Amma or my heroines, have to fight their ways even
if their journeys are lonely. As I sat through the film watching kate’s
character unravel, an ostensibly troubled love song from the past played in my
head. ‘See the stone set in your eyes/ See the thorn twist in your
side/...Through the storm we reach the shore/ You give it all, but I want more/
and I am waiting for you/ With or withoutyou’.
Yes, sometimes life proves itself difficult and pushes us to move on with
or without the ones we love because we can’t help respecting and loving
ourselves too. The Irish Rock Band’s song ‘With or Without You’ suddenly sang
loud and clear in my ears. Kate was then ready to make a choice just like Maitrayi,
the heroine of my novel had made. “She would
never hide in the fear of loneliness; in fact she would stretch out with the
limitless supply of love with her. She was a pioneering woman who had worked on
her strength and courage to go ahead with a newlife. Some deep inner promptings had urged her to make her choice. She
would be eternally grateful to that something inside her which had allowed herthe vision of this new ‘heaven’.”
Kate too perhaps had a heaven in mind and Amma was already there.

5 comments:

God made man and built a woman says the Book of Genesis. As we understand the purpose for which Father God created woman (and man), we will not be mere opinion makers but will be elevated to be the decision makers for the wellbeing and freedom millions of women. It is my prayer that our society be ruled by such men and women who walk in this light.

What you're saying is completely true. I know that everybody must say the same thing, but I just think that you put it in a way that everyone can understand. I'm sure you'll reach so many people with what you've got to say.

What you're saying is completely true. I know that everybody must say the same thing, but I just think that you put it in a way that everyone can understand. I'm sure you'll reach so many people with what you've got to say.

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Ruby Malshe

Ruby Malshe lives in India, teaches at Wilson College in Mumbai and believes there is a story unfolding every minute somewhere in this beautiful world. One only needs to be attentive to notice it, hold it in ones heart and hum it out to listening ears. The world may in its turn catch it, let it seep deep within and allow it to grow beautifully.